Why the unionization of Tennessee Volkswagen workers is a big breakthrough for UAW

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• John Yang:

  Workers at Volkswagen's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have overwhelmingly voted to join the United Auto Workers Union. It's the first time workers at a foreign carmakers plant in the American south have unionized. It gives the UAW a foothold in the least unionized region of the country. New York Times reporter Noam Scheiber has covered labor unions for nearly a decade.

  Noam, how big a deal is this?

• Noam Scheiber, The New York Times:

  This is a really big deal. The UAW had spent decades failing to organize some of these big plants in the south, despite spending millions and millions of dollars, and in some cases, years and years, only to have the vote fail and, you know, have the election lose and have to go back to the drawing board. So this is a really big breakthrough for the UAW.

• John Yang:

  And what's the significance of it?

• Noam Scheiber:

  Yeah, so the UAW is now involved in a major campaign to try to organize unorganized auto facilities, really, across the country. And there are many of them, not just Volkswagen, but Japanese automakers like Toyota, Honda, Korean automakers like Hyundai, and, of course, Tesla and domestic electric vehicle makers.

  This is a really big moment for the auto industry as we transition to electric vehicles. The UAW is really concerned that wages and work standards will collapse basically as we make this transition, unless they're able to unionize all these non-union automakers. So this is a really big step toward doing that as we make this transition.

• John Yang:

  As you mentioned, the UAW has been trying to do this for a while and failing. And at this plant, workers twice voted in the past 10 years not to unionize, voted against the union. What was the difference this time?

• Noam Scheiber:

  Yeah, so in the past, there was an election in 2014 and another one in 2019. At various points, the company has pushed back pretty aggressively. And when the company has not pushed back aggressively, the local political leadership has. At one point in 2019, the governor of Tennessee came and addressed the workers on the factory floor and essentially told them why unionizing would be a mistake.

  Other politicians in the state told them that they could threaten the ability of the plant to grow in the future and receive state subsidies. This time, the climate was a lot more subdued. The company was pretty tame, really. More or less stood down, let the workers make the decision.

  The election happened very quickly, so that did not give the kind of political establishment in the state as much time to mobilize against it the way they had in the past. I think those two things really helped. And then there's just a general climate that's become more favorable to labor over the past three or four years. If you look at Gallup polling, the support among the public for unions is very high, almost historically high, nearly 70 percent, and certainly higher than it was ten years ago.

• John Yang:

  You mentioned before the VW vote, six southern governors, all Republicans, issued a joint statement saying that unionization threatens our jobs and the values we live by. And then last night, President Biden congratulated the VW workers and said, there is nothing to fear from American workers using their voice and their legal right to form a union. Is there a chance this would get caught up in presidential politics?

• Noam Scheiber:

  Yeah, I don't know if presidential politics, because I'm not sure if Donald Trump will try to argue that unions are a mistake. But certainly there is a political resonance to this. Southern governors, southern state legislatures have really invested in this idea that American manufacturing should relocate in the south, where there aren't as many unions, where wages are a little lower, they have a little more flexibility, not as much regulation.

  And the UAW and a lot of Democrats see that as a problem for workers because you can always sort of threaten to move your company to the south if workers push back too much in other regions of the country.

  So the UAW and I think a lot of left to center politicians think that this is really important for restoring leverage, not just to workers in the south, but to really all other parts of the country where manufacturers could threaten to go to the south.

• John Yang:

  And to that point, is there a chance that this could spread to other industries, non-unionized factories in other industries in the south?

• Noam Scheiber:

  Yeah, I think there is a good chance. A lot of these communities where the plants are located, they're pretty small communities. They're tight knit communities. The people have relatives, close friends, who work at other manufacturers, even in retail fast food, they tend to draw from a similar (inaudible).

  And so I do think that, you know, as one expert told me, there is no greater motivation for trying to unionize than when you see it succeed elsewhere. Often people are very afraid and reluctant to do it, but then when they see a sort of proof of concept, they start to believe it's possible for them, too. So you can see how it could trickle out to other industries and other workers.

• John Yang:

  Noam Scheiber of the New York Times. Thank you very much.

• Noam Scheiber:

  Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.